Okay, that's enough now. I don't like roller coasters, never have, and I feel as though I want this one to level off so that my motion sickness can subside for a bit. Personally I am glad that BT have yet to put a line in my new office, meaning that I have been unable to keep track of the daily movements of all the club stocks. However, the end of day figures don't make happy reading.

Still, we're in this for the long term with H&G, for 4.5 years more with the Dirty Harrys and another 2 years with the Brass Monkeys. Plenty of time for more thrills and spills at the stock market fairground.

So how can investment clubs make maximum advantage of periods of extreme volatility? The short answer is that they can't, really. But only meeting once a month can prove pretty fortunate, as I shall explain.

Firstly, let's take a look at H&G. This club's portfolio has probably weathered the "Great Sell-Off" the best, and this has been achieved by spreading the risk across sectors rather than being too heavily weighted in one. Certainly, we had a large percentage in tech stocks, and are still showing pretty good gains on the ones we still hold (for instance, we bought ARM Holdings (LSE: ARM) at £21, NXT (LSE: NTX) at £4.50 and Retail Decisions (LSE: RTD) , formerly CardClear, at 40p). But we also hold SFI (LSE: SUF), Lloyds TSB (LSE: LLOY), Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBOS), Vodafone AirTouch (LSE: VOD) and Charles Stanley (LSE: CAY), amongst others. The TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) stocks have gone up so much since last October that, even allowing for the descent from the highs of last month, there has been plenty of opportunity for private investors and clubs to sell some or all of their TMT holdings and still make excellent returns.

The Brass Monkeys are probably the most fortunate club. The meetings are on the 3rd Thursday of the month and, as regular readers of this column know, the portfolio is massively weighted in TMT stocks (about 85%). Last month, in the 2 days leading up to the meeting, there was a mini-correction, and we decided to take profits in all of our holdings, and at this moment that decision looks absolutely inspired. The portfolio has of course dropped a bit since, but we are holding a fairly large amount of cash, ready to invest after the market stabilises -- we'll probably reinvest in September/October.

The Dirty Harrys started last October with 100% TMT stocks in the portfolio. There has been a small diversification since, but not much of one (SFI, Reflec (LSE: REF) and Merchant Retail (LSE: MRT) are the only ones without a TMT flavour). However, because of the large gains made since November, we can afford to sit tight and weather the storm. This club has the vast majority of its 5-year life ahead of it, and we feel that our TMT stocks are the "quality" ones that will see us through (ARM, NXT, Kewill (LSE: KWL), BATM (LSE: BVC), Kingston Communications (LSE: KCOM) and Vodafone). I imagine we will be looking to diversify a bit in the future, though.

Now, all of those clubs meet monthly, and therefore it is not open to them to "duck and dive" around the market, trying to bottom-fish or top-slice. Great news that, especially given recent market movements, because it has shown quite categorically that you cannot time the market. The club portfolio is therefore protected on a month to month basis, and in the current climate that is a huge bonus. It is only the day trader types, or the people new to the TMT sector since February, that are being caned at present. Sorry, did I say caned? Beaten black and blue, more like.

So, if you are in a club with heavy weighting in TMT stocks, don't worry too much. Quality will come through eventually, and if those stocks were purchased any time last year, you will still be up nicely. In a meeting of H&G last October, I actually stated that I thought our portfolio could be worth as much as £50,000 in April 2000 (it was about £27,000 then). It is looking like I will be right. What I didn't know of course is that the value would have touched £90,000 in the interim period! Still, let's keep it in perspective -- 100%-odd in 6 months isn't too bad, is it?

Talking of H&G, we are changing our monthly venue. Since our inception in October 1994 we have met at the Horse and Groom pub in Rochford, Essex. However, the landlord sold out a couple of months ago, and the new owners, although very pleasant, are obviously trying to change the pub a bit in order to boost takings. At our last meeting, we had to contend with decorators, Chelsea v Barcelona, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and lots of "buy buy buy, sell sell sell" calls from the punters. Not conducive to a good meeting, is that. But we've got no right to expect them to be quiet and shut up, after all it is a pub, so we decided to try to find a new meeting place. As of next month, we shall hold our monthly gatherings at the Anne Boleyn, also in Rochford, which is a much bigger pub with a separate room that the manager is happy for us to use. No doubt we will still be called H&G, but the initials will now stand for "Heavy" and "Geezers". However, if we were to change our name, what about the "Top Slicers"? Very appropriate, given the name of the pub, is it not?

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• The Fool's Guide to Investment Clubs
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